Church fires back at former pastor

Pastor Paul Graban is suing the Fountain of Life Assemblies of God in Florence, where he served as pastor for 50 years, for money he said is contractually owed to him.

“It’s a mess. My dad has tried to resolve this. The news that comes back from the church is ‘we are not interested in settling this’,” Ron Graban, the Pastor’s son stated.

The church, which denies the existence of the contract, isn't interested in settling.

In fact, the church with new Pastor, Dave Boudwin, is now accusing the former pastor of funding his own retirement by helping himself to church cash, and about $3 million worth of gold and silver.

“Here’s the thing, Pastor Dave Boudwin was the business administrator, he didn’t know about this? I mean all of a sudden? He was the business administrator as long as I can remember,” Ron asked.

Pastor Graban won’t return calls or answer the door, or even let his lawyer talk to anyone.  

But, the basis of the suit is that there is allegedly a 20% agreement from Pastor Graban with the church for the 20% of unattached funds from the church.

How that was supposed to be allocated or how that was supposed to be paid remains unclear.

However, in the original suit, it stated that Pastor Graban never took a regular salary, but the church denies it.

They are also denying that he lived frugally, which according to the lawsuit, is what the Pastor said he did do.

In the court papers, Ron Graban allegedly has been directly accused of swiping millions in gold and fresh metals from father Paul’s office.

“That is something that’s a legal matter and I really need to not discuss, I’m sorry, and that was at the advice of my attorney,” Ron stated.

But, Ron’s father’s lawsuit is more clear about the items.

The lawsuit says that Senior Graban owned that gold. He made purchases of it from personal funds and that the church allegedly took it from him when they locked him out of his office.

All of that is denied by the church.